Performance Limits for Field Effect Transistors as Terahertz ... - arXiv

13 downloads 1023 Views 210KB Size Report
1Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110, 8th street, Troy, NY, 12180, USA. 2A.F. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, 26 Polytechnicheskaya Street, St. Petersburg, ...
Performance Limits for Field Effect Transistors as Terahertz Detectors 1,2,3

V. Yu. Kachorovskii1,2 , S. L. Rumyantsev

, W.Knap3, and M. Shur1

1

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 110, 8th street, Troy, NY, 12180, USA. A.F. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, 26 Polytechnicheskaya Street, St. Petersburg, 194021, Russia 3 Laboratoire Charles Coulomb &TERALAB, Université Montpellier 2 & CNRS, 34950 Montpellie, France 2

We present estimates of the performance limits of terahertz detectors based on the field effect transistors (FET) in the regime of broadband detection. The maximal responsivity is predicted for short-channel FETs in the subthreshold regime. We also calculate the conversion efficiency Q of the device defined as the ratio of the power dissipated by radiation-induced dc current to the THz dissipated power. We show that Q has an absolute maximum as a function of two variables: the power and the frequency of the incoming radiation. The maximal value of Q is on the order of 10%. with amplifiers.14,18 These numbers, however, do not characterize the intrinsic device performance, since the responsivity was calculated by dividing the THz induced voltage drop across the FET over the THz power on the antenna. Actually, the power applied to the FET is smaller due to inevitable losses in the interconnects and is affected by antenna structure. This paper analyses the intrinsic performance of plasmonic detectors by considering the response to the THz power, Pω , absorbed in the detector itself.

I. INTRODUCTION Recent progress in terahertz (THz) plasmonic technology1-21 has promise for applications in homeland security, biomedical imaging, radio astronomy, industrial controls, and short range covert and space communications. The plasmonic technology uses field-effect transistors (FETs) as compact and tunable emitters, detectors, and modulators of THz radiation. The nonlinear properties of the FET channel may be used for detection of THz radiation.2 Due to the nonlinearity, the potential and density oscillations induced by the incoming THz wave with a frequency ω are rectified into a dc voltage drop across the FET channel ΔU (the detector response). For the resonant case, ω0τ>>1 (here ωo is the fundamental plasma frequency and τ is the momentum scattering time), the plasma oscillations with a high quality factor are excited in the FET channel, when the signal frequency ω is close to ω0 and its harmonics. In the opposite limit, ω0τ

Suggest Documents